'It seems to me most strange that men should fear;
Seeing that death, a necessary end,
Will come when it will come.'
Stanza XXXI. line 573. the fiery Dane. See note on line 10 above.
Passing northwards after destroying York and Tynemouth, the Danes in
875 burned the monastery on Lindisfarne. The bishop and monks, with
their relics and the body of St. Cuthbert, fled over the Kylve
hills. See Raine, &c.
line 576. the crosier bends. Crosier (O. Fr. croiser; Fr. croix =
cross) is used both for the staff of an archbishop with a cross on
the top, and for the staff of a bishop or an abbot, terminating in a
carved or ornamented curve or crook. The word is used here
metaphorically for Papal power, as Bacon uses it, speaking of Anselm
and Becket, 'who with their CROSIERS did almost try it with the
king's sword.' Constance's prophecy refers to Henry VIII's
victorious collision with the Pope.
Stanza XXXII. lines 585-91. It is impossible not to connect this
striking picture with that of Virgil's Sibyl (Aeneid, VI. 45):--
'Ventum erat ad limen, cum virgo, 'poscere fata
Tempus,' ait; 'deus, ecce, deus.' Cui talia fanti
Ante fores subito non voltus, non color unus,
Non comptae mansere comae; sed pectus anhelum,
Et rabie fera corda tument; maiorque videri
Nec mortale sonans, adflata est numine quando
Iam propiore dei.'
line 588. Stared, stood up stiffly. Cp. Julius Caesar, iv. 3. 280,
and Tempest, i. 2. 213, 'with hair UPSTARING.'
line 600. See above, line 468, and note.
Stanza XXXIII. line 616. for terror's sake = because of terror. Cp.
'For fashion's sake,' As You Like It, iii. 2. 55.
line 620. The custom of ringing the PASSING bell grew out of the
belief that a church bell, rung when the soul was passing from the
body, terrified the devils that were waiting to attack it at the
moment of its escape. 'The tolling of the passing bell was retained
at the Reformation; and the people were instructed that its use was
to admonish the living, and excite them to pray for the dying. But
by the beginning of the l8th century the passing bell in the proper
sense of the term had almost ceased to be heard. 'A mourning bell is
still rung during funeral services as a mark of respect. See s. v.
'Bell,' Chambers's Encyclopaedia. Cp. Byron's 'Parisina,' St. xv.
'The convent bells are ringing,
But mournfully and slow;
In the grey square turret swinging
With a deep sound to and fro.'
In criticising 'Marmion,' in the Edinburgh Review, Lord Jeffrey says
that the sound of the knell rung for Constance 'is described with
great force and solemnity;' while a writer in the Scots Magazine of
1808 considers that 'the whole of this trial and doom presents a
high-wrought scene of horror, which, at the close, rises almost to
too great a pitch.'